30 years of tying knots. I am not done yet.
June 30, 2025 / Mary Jane Weaver / 30th Anniversary Posts
The thing that I still love the most, after 30 years of practice, is that very first opening of the file. It used to be physical: Hard green folders that you literally had to crack open. Handwritten notes with first impressions. The beginning. Now it is just a click on the screen, and suddenly someone’s life is fully before you. But the questions are the same. Who is this person? Why are they needed? What is the nature of the work? What mad, and sometimes not so mad, invention is in development over there? How do the two fit together? Why all this effort, anyway?
I love the puzzle of it. Many people talk about the sensation of solving a problem as having an “aha” moment: The thought bubble suddenly dissipates once the solution is found. A sudden relief. That is not how it works for me. Problem solving is not an unmaking. It is a thing. Something concrete is formed. I guess I am just as my name suggests: A Weaver. I work at the middle of two strings -where hard effort, ambition, and a constant sense of urgency meet need- to form something sturdy. Necessary. Sometimes invaluable. I am a maker of knots.
My kids were astonished to learn that my favorite part of the Constitution is embedded in the first sentence. But there it is: So full of promise and yet also so very demanding. The combination is thrilling. This recognition that we are, as a nation, a work in progress with a need, one might even say a compulsion, toward betterment. Never static. But there it is, also: The relief valve. That implicit acknowledgment of our humanity. And of our commonality. We seek to move forward. Toward unity. Toward perfection. Always. We are not there yet. We will never be there.
I am not the first to remark that our country is akin to a tapestry, with threads of all sorts of textures and shapes from so many different origins, creating a single fabric of interest and wonder. I am in agreement. 30 years of tying knots. I am not done yet. There are still so many people and things unknown and unseen that I need to puzzle over. I must pull the strings toward me. Tie together. I need to keep moving toward that intoxicating promise of perfection. Make more of these strands connect. The result is bumpy. Non-uniform. Novel. Unbreakable. A work not yet done. Impossible to complete. Immensely beautiful.
Happy 4th of July.
